Critical Approaches to Life-Writing

Abstract

This chapter describes some of the tools and methods for critically reading life-writing texts, including memoirs and autobiography, with an emphasis on life-writing by health professionals and/or in the context of healthcare. Life-writing texts allow research into the internal and lived experiences of those who provide healthcare, such as physicians and nurses, and those who receive healthcare. Texts by life-writing subjects from different historical periods, geographic locations, genders, diagnoses, and stages and contexts of training can offer shifting perspectives on a range of topics from the development of health professional identity, what it means to be sick, and about how these experiences relate to the practices and institutions of healthcare. Steps in the research process and methods for analyzing life-writing texts are outlined, along with relevant resources. The field of life-writing offers many possibilities for health humanities researchers and can be enriched by bringing interdisciplinary theories to the analysis of life-writing texts.